Blogs and Sites

Whenever I recall the reading of advice from the recent article in Soccer America, for whom incidentally I used to write in the seventies, when Clay Berling was the editor of the magazine he founded in 1971, I still get a little steamed, like my daughters' dogs:

It is incomprehensible to me that someone could referee for more than thirty years, through more than 8000 indoor and outdoor games, and still not absorb a principal tenet of officiating. How did he miss that refereeing is based upon enforcing a set of rules which are the same for all participants? How did he come to believe that he could make up his own laws?

No matter, I have written to Soccer America suggesting they correct the egregious error, and I promised you I would explain how you can deal with a flag that you don't need or want. The technique is still sound, even in these days of radio communication among the three or four or six or however-many officials (when is the increase going to end?)

Thanks to my friend Chuck Stuart in Idaho Falls for the heads-up to an article in Soccer America (Jan. 31, 2012). To quote him: "When I read it, my jaw just dropped - the advice in the article just seems to go completely against what I would expect to be the correct actions of the referee."

Chuck's instinctsare accurate. The article offers bad advice that violates the LOTG, and if that advice is allowed to be widely publicized, it could lead to widespread corruption of the game and its laws. And it is all to do with the simple act of a referee overruling an assistant about a flag raised to indicate an offside infraction. [I have written to Soccer America suggesting they publish a correction.]

How many times out on the park have you heard that cry: "What is he looking at?" That and all its variants: "You're missing a great game!" or "How could she miss that?" and "It was right in front of him, and he did nothing!" As an instructor I have dealt with this problem many, many times, and tried various themes as a way of impressing referees that knowing where and when to look is as important as knowing the laws. And after watching the Premiership these last few months, I have to say that the problem doesn't exist only in the amateur game.

So before I go on to the subject, let me ask a few questions of you . . . and then we'll have a practical demonstration from the eight-year-old daughter of two skillful soccer-playing parents, with whom I have had the great pleasure of playing.